Percussion?

Well now, this is interesting. For the past couple of weeks, I've been playing baritone horn and string bass in a traditional Klezmer (traditional Askenazi style) band in Boston, and we've been hacking away at a bunch of good old traditional klezmer tunes and it's been pretty fun. If you've never heard real Klezmer music, i highly suggest you seek it out, like on youtube somewhere, it's hard not to like, with the squealing clarinet, and triple jointed oboes and the likes. Good stuff.

Anyway, I was plucking along on a bass (one of the few pieces that I play it in) when the lead clarinet guy person thing at the front stopped us and stared at me for a while. I kinda freaked out because he's a really scary guy, stick-thin and wears a patch over his left eye because there's only half of it left and we don't know why (i'm not even kidding, it's really freaky). He just stared for a while, narrowing his eye, and then pointed at the poyk (like a bass drum with a small little metal thing thats sort of a cymbal but not quite on the top) in the corner and kinda nodded his head. So I walk over and pic up a mallet, and he nods.

What the fuck?

I'm sweating like crazy and the main percussionist is just like staring at me (she's really good) and she shakes her head and goes back to her snare drum/wood block. I'm pretty much screwed. Scary guy at the front cues us again, and I just sit there at first, listening. The real percussionist is doing some totally crazy thing that I can't possibly follow. After a quick little solo, i realized scary guy was staring at me and the percussionist gave me a nudge, so without thinking i just started banging the hell out of the poyk, trying as hard as I could to stay on some sort of beat. When I felt I had a groove steady enough, I started hitting the metal thing every once in a while too.

To me, it sounded like a bunch of noise. This was confirmed by the look of sheer disgust on the percussionists face. Creepy guy was still staring at me. It was weird though.

Because after the 8-5-1 at the end, we modulated and segwayed into an upbeat freylekh, I adjusted, kept banging, and he smiled. We played three sections, and each time, I got more and more into it. He stopped. I looked up. He nodded at me and smiled again, and we started again.

And so now I'm a Klezmer percussionist. And I kind of love it. I kind of REALLY love it. After I got the feel for the rhythm of the pieces, it's so easy to just get totally lost, and play. I started experimenting, and at the end of the session the real actually percussionist actually complemented me, and agreed to help me, give me tips and such.

It rocks.

That's all. Have a good week!